Backpage.com adult ads draw AG ire

Published 12:00 am, Friday, September 24, 2010

She's a savvy businesswoman whose high-paying clients, she said, hail from a variety of fields, including law enforcement, the judiciary, finance and professional sports.

But if 22 state attorneys general have their way, this San Antonio woman and others like her will be out of business or in need of an alternate marketing plan.

Her clients find her online, she said, trolling for “escorts” — amid the other categories — under the adult services section on Backpage.com, the latest classified ad website under attack by lawmakers and law enforcers.

She spoke on condition of anonymity and asked that not even a pseudonym be used. She said she's in her early 40s, works a “professional” job in finance, has three kids in college, including medical school, and is divorced from a man in law enforcement after a marriage in which she lost half her life savings, she said.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and the top law enforcers from 21 other states, after enjoying success in getting Craigslist.org to shut down its adult service ads in the United States, are now setting their sights on Backpage.

News Channel

It's set up much like Craigslist, with a host of classified categories and different pages for various cities, including San Antonio. The eight adult services subcategories contain ads like that of the San Antonio escort, which markets her good company and the possibility of more as a consenting adult.

She acknowledges she's in the minority — most of the ads offer sex, blatantly.

This worries politicians, police, advocates for runaways and those who fight human trafficking.

“In our view, it is time for the company to follow Craiglist's lead and take immediate action to end the misery of the women and children who may be exploited and victimized by these ads,” the attorneys general said in a letter to Backpage this week. “Because Backpage cannot, or will not, adequately screen these ads, it should stop accepting them altogether.”

And just as Craigslist did, Backpage has called the request “censorship.” The firm says it has provided testimony in five cases involving alleged abuse of minors and will keep cooperating with authorities who had “valid subpoenas.” It accused the AGs of using the company to generate political capital during an election season.

“In the last two years, Backpage.com users have posted 58 million ads and only 6 million in the adult services section,” a company statement said.

State Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, D-San Antonio, who has authored several state laws to combat human trafficking, said law enforcement is in a tough spot, deciding where to use its resources. But, she added, she has seen the proof that trafficking is an issue here.

“I know it is happening,” Van De Putte said. “Women, children and young men, forced into labor or forced into sex by a third party; they use Internet sites.”

The San Antonio escort does not consider herself exploited. She said she is strict about choosing clients. She is discreet. She charges anywhere from $350 to $450 an hour just for talking or getting to know a client. Anything after that is “a decision made by two consenting adults,” she said.

It's that loophole that separates the legal from the illicit, although she admits some of her transactions put her on the wrong side of the law.

She said she plans to spend Saturday with a client to the tune of $1,500 — and so far, nothing they've done is illegal.

“We actually haven't had sex,” she said. “That's what a lot of people don't understand. It's not just about sex. Some men are just lonely.”

Yes, she says, far more of the ads reflect sellers and buyers who are in it for a quick payoff. But she contends the local online adult prostitution world isn't a slave trade.

“I just don't see it,” she said of the belief that adult prostitutes are, by definition, exploited. “These women are putting themselves out there. They are providing a service that men are seeking and getting paid handsomely — well, at least some of them.”

And there is nothing that will stop the trade, though it does evolve and adapt in response to law enforcement actions, she said. A San Antonio Police Department bust in June involving Craigslist and Backpage users that netted 62 prostitution arrests had those in the trade and their customers “talking about it quite a bit,” she said.

Vice Lt. Andrew Rodriguez said the June operation, along with the prostitution arrests, generated four arrests on outstanding county warrants, 10 on municipal warrants, 13 citations issued, one arrest for promoting prostitution, one for compelling a minor in prostitution, two for failure to identify and one missing person taken into custody.

The compelling prostitution case was that of a 19-year-old woman who was working with a 16-year-old friend, Rodriguez said. Since the older teen did the talking, they arrested her on the compelling charge.

Rodriguez rarely sees minors forced into prostitution online in San Antonio, but that doesn't mean it's not happening, he said.

“You read enough ads, you get a decent basis for trying to decipher which could be minors, which one of these could be maybe people involved in human trafficking or which ones are just clearly a grown woman making an adult choice in her way,” Rodriguez said.

Legal or not, the escort said she believes nothing she does is morally wrong.

“I respect the law enforcement community. They're just doing their jobs,” she said. “I'm not ashamed. I'm not embarrassed.”